


The Nights Are the Worst

by Luthien



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Episode Tag, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-19
Updated: 2015-05-19
Packaged: 2018-03-31 06:10:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3967384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luthien/pseuds/Luthien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short exploration of how Belle's feeling just before Season 4B, since the canon didn't bother to show us.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nights Are the Worst

The nights are the worst.

No one could ever have accused Rumpelstiltskin of being a heavy sleeper. Belle had sometimes wondered if he’d ever slept at all during his centuries as the Dark One. He was brimming over with nervous energy whenever there was anyone around to see—anyone but Belle—and equally full of a quiet that was in no way peaceful at other times. There was too much there, too many thoughts, all of them too restless and too deep, to be captured and subdued by something as mundane as sleep, however much Rumple might have craved its sweet oblivion.

Of course Rumple slept each night once he was an ordinary man again, in Storybrooke—ordinary in physical appearance, if nothing else—but he didn’t sleep peacefully or well. Too often, Belle would awaken in the dark and reach out across the sheets to find the space beside her empty and cold. She always got up and went in search of him, and she always found him without much trouble, usually sitting in an armchair with a book, or a glass of whisky, or simply staring into space.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Belle would ask then.

“I didn’t want to disturb you,” would be his invariable reply.

“Come back to bed,” she’d say. She meant it as an invitation, but he seemed to take it as a command. A welcome one. It was as if he were afraid that, left to his own devices, he might sit there indefinitely.

And so they’d go back to the bedroom, hand in hand, and what followed was Belle’s favourite part of the day. They’d lie there, cosy together in the darkness, and talk about this and that: little things like who’d come into the library yesterday, and big things like, “I love you.” It was usually only as her voice broke a little on a sigh that she’d fully realise that their private little world of words was now also a world of touch.

They always ended up making love, slowly and quietly in the last darkness before dawn, kisses driving away the need for words, and somehow it always came— _she_ came—as a lovely surprise. She’d never felt so close to him as then, so intimately connected in mind as well as body, so _sure_ of what they were to each other.

And now…

The nights are the worst.

Belle wakes to darkness and an empty space beside her, but there’s no point in getting up. He won’t be in his chair. He won’t be anywhere. She banished him and now he’s gone.

She lies there for a while after the tears have come and gone, and finally gets up alone in the last darkness before the dawn.

Rumple used to make tea for her, every morning. He’s—he _was_ —better at it than she is. She still makes tea in the morning, out of habit more than anything. It’s there on the shelf and it needs to be used up. She still can’t achieve anything like Rumple’s perfect brew.

Perhaps that’s for the best.

Belle gets dressed, pulling a dress from a hanger at random. Rumple's suits are still hanging on his side of the closet. He left with literally only the clothes on his back. Perhaps he had money in his pockets, though. And, regardless of that, his wits would surely be enough for him to survive on, even in the great outside world without magic.

Surely? Perhaps.

She can still see his face, pleading with her even after he'd stumbled backwards across the town line. He'd been afraid. He hadn't even been able to stand properly. She could have at least tossed him his cane, couldn't she? Maybe she could even have tossed it accurately enough to hit him with it.

Belle closes her eyes and lets out a shuddering breath, feeling sick to her stomach at the thought of wanting to hurt him. He lied to her. He used her. He manipulated her. And yet he loved her, too. She can't believe that that was a lie.

But he loved his power more.

The mornings are the worst.

**Author's Note:**

> I was intending this to be a longer piece looking at how Belle got to where she is when Rumple returns to Storybrooke in 4B, but life got in the way before I finished it and the canon moved on. I think this first part of it works by itself, so that's what I've posted.


End file.
